Artist and Art in the Age of Historical Cataclysms: Kateryna Lebedieva’s novel «22. A Mystic Case at Voznesenskyi Descent in Kyiv»

Abstract

The paper is dedicated to studying the problems of artists and art during climactic events in Ukrainian history. Kateryna Lebedieva’s novel “22. A Mystic Case at Voznesenskyi Descent in Kyiv” has been used to analyse the artistic context of the revolutionary and war events of 1917–1922 in Ukraine, singling out the challenges for art during breaking moments in the history of the country. The research aims to analyse authorial strategies of depicting the response of different artistic environments to global changes happening in the artistic community during turbulent times. The novel’s material shows how crisis periods in history, such as war, occupation, hunger, seizure of power, revolution, influence artistic activities, personal traits and behavioural models of people of art. The novel underscores the problems of forming national identity and its representation in works of art, the evolution of national consciousness which happens to artists during the establishment of the young Ukrainian state. The methodological basis of the study is intermedial studies which help highlight the problem of an artist during moments that are critical for their state through artistic interactions, namely visual art, graphics, theatrical art and literature. The article follows ways by which Lebedieva depicts changes in the environment of the newly created Ukrainian Academy of Arts during the establishment of the Ukrainian National Republic, civil war, and the Soviet regime, while using examples of Heorhii Narbut, Mykhailo Boichuk and the academy students to show transformations in creativity caused by external factors. An essential aspect in the artistic responses to landmark historical events is the reform of theatre demonstrated in the novel through the example of stagings by Les Kurbas.